


Tidying Up

by jimkirkachu (burning_spirit)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aging, Boys Kissing, Cat Spock (Star Trek), Chubby James T. Kirk, Corny jokes, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuddly James T. Kirk, Cuddly Spock (Star Trek), Domestic Fluff, Established James T. Kirk/Spock, Established Relationship, Eye Sex, Feels, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Gentle Kissing, Gentleness, Hand & Finger Kink, Holding Hands, Hugging/Embracing, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Innuendo, Interspecies Romance, James T. Kirk Loves Spock, James T. Kirk Speaks Vulcan, James T. Kirk/Spock Fluff, James T. Kirk/Spock in Love, Kirk is hopelessly in love, Kissing, Light Petting, M/M, Married Couple, Married James T. Kirk/Spock, Married Life, Mentions of Sex, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Neck Kissing, OTP Feels, Old Married Couple, Old Married Spirk Challenge, Old Married Spirk Challenge 2019, Pet Names, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Slice of Life, So Married, Space Husbands, Spock Loves James T. Kirk, Spock is a tease, Spock is hopelessly in love, T'hy'la, Tenderness, Touch Telepathy, Touching, True Love, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Kisses, Vulcan Language, hopeless romantic kirk, k/s - Freeform, light humor, no actual sex but give me a chance, old married spirk, otp, so in love it hurts, spirk, terms of endearment, vulcan hand porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21615883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_spirit/pseuds/jimkirkachu
Summary: Captain Kirk enlists the help of his husband, Spock, in tackling one of their greatest challenges yet: cleaning out the closet!Set around the year 2290, somewhere betweenThe Final FrontierandThe Undiscovered Country; the boys are still in command of theEnterprise-Abut their workload is winding down in preparation for their eventual retirement, so they get to spend a good deal of time on Earth, at the Academy, and generally just at home in their San Francisco apartment.  This is a domestic fluff marathon with sprinklings of OTP Feels.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 16
Kudos: 90
Collections: Old Married Spirk





	Tidying Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Old Married Spirk Challenge 2019, hosted by the extraordinary plaidshirtjimkirk. I’m so grateful yet again for the Challenge motivating me to finish a major story idea I’ve had in the wings for a long time, and of course I’m beyond grateful to plaid for hosting it each year!!
> 
> Rated M for one mild swear and lots of kissing, petting, and implied sexuality.
> 
> Please refer to the end notes for Vulcan translations and more thoughts. (Translations also in hover text.) :)
> 
> Special thanks to winonakirk57 for invaluable beta services!

This was one of Captain James T. Kirk’s favorite kinds of days. The famous San Francisco fog had rolled in heavily and refused to burn off all morning. The sun peeked out every now and then, but otherwise it was just cool enough and just damp enough that neither Kirk nor his husband had any real motivation to leave their apartment, or even get dressed, for that matter. And that lack of motivation worked out just fine, since neither of them had any obligations for the whole weekend.

On this particular morning, he and Captain Spock—his perfect, lanky bondmate—had spent a glorious hour or so simply burrowed together in their cozy blanket den, waking and falling back to sleep all tangled up in each other’s limbs, petting, kissing, casually mind melding and chatting, half-consciously trading whispered declarations of praise and love. Eventually, though, Spock had insisted they eat, so he dragged his reluctant briefs-and-bathrobe-clad Human out of their unmade bed toward the kitchen.

It was always a treat to watch the scientist sashay around their living space looking like a disheveled angel without a care in the world. Wearing nothing but his tight black undershirt and periwinkle terrycloth sleep shorts, Spock was an absolute _vision_ as—confidently walking backward—he enticed Kirk across the living room, his staticky hair uncombed and sticking out at wild angles, their black cat rubbing against his bare legs and sandaled heels the whole way. Kirk was beckoned forward by the gravity wells of Spock’s earnest gaze and unfettered smile, just a few of the hard-won spoils from their shared decades-long pursuit of a fulfilling compromise between his Vulcan and Human identities… a few charming little testaments to the psychological turmoil they’d navigated together as Spock had faced his emotional traumas and Kirk had fought to shelter him, to be his stability and his home all the while.

It helped, too, that Spock’s experience with death had not only brought them back together, their marriage and their telepathic bond all the more resilient for having survived such an impossible phenomenon. His temporary demise had also freed his tormented conscience from his lifelong burdens of self-doubt and self-suppression; it had liberated him from the crippling inferiority complex he’d struggled with since before Kirk had ever even met him. He was a new man, so to speak, one who was less concerned with being Vulcan enough for his father or Human enough for his colleagues and more concerned with enjoying the unique perspective his dual heritage provided him.

(And, perhaps best of all, it had made him an even livelier and more passionate lover.)

If it was possible, Kirk thought his current Spock—the Spock of this very moment, this age, this physiological state with pronounced wrinkles and graying sideburns—might be even more beautiful than the Spock of twenty-some-odd years ago whom he’d fallen in love with and married during their first five-year mission.

After leisurely cooking and breakfasting in their pajamas (with a healthy portion of flirtatious horseplay, of course), they abandoned the dirty dishes in favor of nursing a few extra cups of tea and coffee while snuggling in front of the fireplace, which—much to the cat’s delight—radiated a soft glow accompanied by bone-, heart-, and soul-warming heat.

Kirk was glad they’d replaced the old glorified desk chairs with a nice, plush sofa a few years ago. Now he was able to lie with his back propped up against the arm and his left shoulder tucked into the back of the couch, situate Spock between his outstretched legs, and wrap his red-orange-gold bathrobe around both of them while his lips alternated among small talk, sips from his mug, and sweet kisses to the crown of Spock’s adorably unruly head. As they chatted, soaked up the comfort of the fire to their right, and watched the mist float by out the vista window directly in their line of sight across the room, Kirk idly sifted his free hand through Spock’s hair, reveling as always in the utter softness of those sleek, black-brown locks sprinkled with individual threads of glittering silver.

“Would you…?” Spock said after a while, passing his empty tea cup to his increasingly frisky spouse.

With a grunt of acknowledgment, Kirk accepted the cup and twisted around to set it on the end table behind him, the trunk rotation a far more difficult motion these days than it had been once upon a time. Before pivoting back around, he downed the remains of the coffee in his other hand and transferred that mug to the end table as well, capitalizing on the awkward position while he was already in it so his body wouldn’t have to contort itself again in a few minutes. His back protested with a sharp pang, but a little wiggling under his heavy-muscled partner made the aches in his spine and tailbone lessen to their usual tolerable dullness.

“Thank you, beloved,” Spock said, leaning forward for a moment to accommodate Kirk’s squirming and repositioning.

“Comfy?” Kirk murmured into the strikingly pointed ear of the precious head resting back against his chest, now a little closer to his chin than before. He worked his arms out of their sleeves and into the body of his favorite tricolor ombré bathrobe, shuffling his hands around Spock’s waist and pulling him close.

Spock gave a contented hum as his eyes shut. He seemed every bit as satisfied as the cat, who was stretched out on the floor with her belly exposed to the peaceful fire.

Snickering, Kirk briefly clenched his bent legs around his love and leaned in to kiss his nape. His own neck stung at the angle, but he couldn’t be bothered to care: Spock’s hands gliding up and down his thighs were far more important. He felt like a well-loved and blithely happy piece of furniture, sitting as he was with his mate reclining back into him the way he might in a chaise lounge or Adirondack on a tropical beach, stroking Kirk’s legs like they were the arms of his favorite chair.

It only took a few more seconds before Kirk’s tongue joined his eager lips in leaving a hot, wet trail of provocative little kisses and nibbles up to Spock’s earlobe, then back down his shoulder until it sloped away under the fluffy bathrobe. The Vulcan’s sensitive neck smelled and tasted heavenly, the fragrance and flavor inherent to his skin conjuring images of sparkling wine, dark chocolate, and fresh long-stemmed roses in Kirk’s dizzied head. He was a luxury, a rich delicacy… such a sinfully alluring indulgence that Kirk was grateful to have admitted long ago his inevitable defeat in the face of such temptation.

Meanwhile, Kirk’s hands slithered beneath the stretchy fabric concealing that long, sturdy plane of lightly-furred skin on his lover’s torso which his fingertips so admired and craved. They made quick work of peeling the pajama shirt up Spock’s body far enough to accommodate their rather obvious quest for his nipples.

 _Slowly, Jim_ , Spock laughed in their telepathic matrimonial link. _What is your hurry?_ His graceful hands came up and steadied Kirk’s impatient ones.

“Sorry, _ashal-veh_ ,” Kirk said. He blushed as Spock tilted his head back just enough to lift an eyebrow and favor him with his signature amusedly mocking stare.

“There is no need for you to be nervous,” Spock said, resuming his posture and exhaling ever so calmly. He pressed Kirk’s hands flat on his chest, the right one a bit off center and south of his ribcage so as to better emphasize the relaxed pace of his heartbeat.

“I’m not nervous!” Kirk said with a totally casual chuckle. “What makes you think I’m nervous?” To prove just how preposterous the notion was, he teasingly sucked and bit a few harmless marks into the pale canvas of Spock’s shoulder.

“We have been intimate so very many times,” Spock continued, sighing under the attentions of Kirk’s mouth as well as his left hand, which had found Spock’s nipple and was restlessly toying with it. “And yet, without fail…”

At his silence, Kirk pulled back and looked inquisitively at him.

Without a sound, Spock raised their intertwined right hands and laid a chaste kiss to the pads of Kirk’s mildly shaking fingers.

Against his will, a violent shiver trickled all throughout Kirk’s body. He nuzzled into his husband’s hair in a futile attempt to hide his reaction.

“After all these years,” Spock said, a note of levity in his syrupy voice, “you still tremble as if you have never touched me before.”

Kirk giggled, unable to deny the accusation. They both knew how much Spock enjoyed the fact that his Human lover often shook uncontrollably when he became aroused.

“That’s not _nervous_ , it’s _excited_ ,” Kirk said into his ear. “And you love it.”

Spock purred, his answering laugh an orgasmic low rumble deep in his chest. He stroked Kirk’s fingers and palms, encouraging him to resume his ministrations at his nipples.

 _Told you so_ , Kirk thought, gently rubbing those tender peaks of tissue between his thumbs and forefingers.

He buried his face in Spock’s extravagantly soft hair and inhaled deeply through his nose, becoming more and more inebriated by the second at the dark, earthy scent of his mate. His whole body began to tremble as he let his breath out and abandoned Spock’s nipples in favor of wrapping his arms as tightly around his midsection as he possibly could. Just feeling the _weight_ of this man he loved so dearly pressing into him was enough to threaten the integrity of his tear ducts. For the millionth time, Kirk lamented the fact that he was getting so mawkish in his old age.

But he couldn’t help it! Spock was so comfortingly heavy, those slender limbs hiding the deceptive mass of the muscles within. Kirk felt so secure and safe lying under him, yet also wonderfully trusted and desired in return. Here was an individual who had grown up being told that emotions—that happiness and love, for Heaven’s sake!—were things to be feared and suppressed and _ashamed_ of. But here he was now, _happily_ sinking down into his _lover_ ’s squishy tummy as if it was the most natural, beautiful thing in the world.

 _And God help me if my husband isn’t the most beautiful thing in the world_, Kirk thought.

“Your… squishy tummy, to borrow your parlance,” Spock said out of nowhere, “makes for such a comfortable pillow that I am considering staying in this position until we both turn to ash and dust.”

Chuckling, Kirk swooned again and curled his calves around Spock’s shins. He planted his feet on the cushion inside the gap of the Vulcan’s legs and squeezed them together even as his arms gripped his torso like an Aldebaran serpent. His lips and chin almost ached from how hard he was jamming them against the crown of Spock’s scalp.

At the desperate hug, Spock draped his arms and hands over his husband’s, twining their fingers together and returning a fraction of the pressure. He was always conscious of how much stronger he was than his Human colleagues, always careful not to hurt his comparatively fragile partner. His relentless compassion and gentleness were staggering. Spellbinding. Sublime, really.

The couple lay there on the couch, just basking in their mutual adoration, for a wonderfully drawn-out minute. Eyes closed, they enjoyed the warmth of each other’s bodies, the pleasant crackling of the fire, the cute rhythmic breaths of the dozing cat on the floor, and the glittering pool of crystals they weightlessly floated through in their metaphysical realm.

 _Don’t leave me… don’t leave me ever again_ , Kirk thought with a shaky sigh. They were fairly old memories now, the scenes of the brief but dark period when he’d lost his soulmate, his very reason for living—and to someone as despicable as… he didn’t like to dignify the tyrant by even so much as thinking his name. But despite their irrelevance and their distance in the past, those recollections remained vivid and raw, as did any pain of such catastrophic magnitude. They’d been through this conversation countless times since the _fal-tor-pan_ , but occasionally the fear of losing Spock still haunted the Human in heavy, emotional moments. _I wouldn’t survive it a second time, Spock... please don’t leave me._

“I have no intention of ever being parted from you again,” Spock said, tilting his head back to look over his right shoulder into Kirk’s eyes, where he saw tears precariously balancing on his lower lids and catching the firelight. “No, my handsome, generous…” He freed his right hand from their bathrobe blanket to stroke the side of his lover’s face. “Do not weep. No… you know I would never…”

Kirk’s _katra_ took flight when Spock arched up to bring their mouths together in a delicate kiss. The tears that had formed out of his anxiety trickled down his cheeks as tears of joy, of reassurance and devotion and love. He made an embarrassed grunting sound at himself when they parted, feeling silly for crying when Spock was right: he _knew_ he would never be alone again.

One of Spock’s slender fingers caught the nearest teardrop and swept its trail away. He reverently brought the fingertip to his lips and kissed the moisture off. _Human tears are supposed to taste of sodium chloride_ , he thought to Kirk, _but yours are saccharine… sweet, just like your mind, and your spirit._

“Please,” Kirk snorted, a soft smile cresting on his lips at the flattery. “And they say Vulcans never lie.”

He brought his own right hand up to have his fingers dance with Spock’s. Resting his head against his husband’s, Kirk let his touch ghost along in abstract motions over his first officer’s porcelain fingers, palms, knuckles, and wrist. He felt Spock’s gaze land on their kissing hands, mesmerized by the sensual ballet they were choreographing. Likewise, Kirk found himself unable to look away from the dalliance of his own pudgy digits with Spock’s long, elegant ones. Balancing in midair before their faces and with the eerily romantic view of the drizzly bay as their backdrop, those ten well-acquainted fingers skimmed and fluttered together and apart, twining and twirling and creating delicious sensations of closeness and eroticism within their respective psyches.

“Your _ozh’estalar_ and _el’ru’estalar_ ,” Spock said, swallowing down a catch in his throat, “are practically flawless.”

The blushing Kirk could hear the affectedness of that sonorous baritone, so he molded his palm to the back of Spock’s hand. Carefully threading his fingers between Spock’s and sliding them down each one to the webbings, Kirk closed his hand in a loose grip, surrounding his lover the way the rest of his body was cradling him. While his thumb rubbed that cool, dry palm, he let his eyes float closed again and he transmitted a dreamy vision of his bare legs locking around Spock’s slim waist, holding him still as his intimate passage massaged Spock’s exquisite penetrating length where their bodies were joined in the little fantasy.

On the couch, Kirk placed a silent kiss to his bondmate’s temple, their left arms still clutching one another across the softness of the Vulcan’s pectorals.

“ _Dzheims_ ,” Spock moaned, his timbre rough but eminently stimulating. “Ohh… _Ri pehkau, kahs’khior’i t’nash-veh_ …”

“Oh my stars,” Kirk drawled, redoubling his fingertips’ tiny pulsing and rubbing motions, which also caused his grip to clench and unclench around Spock’s sensitized knuckles. “Mmmhh, Spock,” he murmured, “you know what you do to me when you slip into Vulcan.” The Human could feel his blood beginning to accumulate at the base of his torso; his pelvis fidgeted on the sofa cushions in search of a position that might alleviate some of the mounting pressure on it.

“ _Ah, tal-kam_ ,” Spock said, clutching hard to Kirk’s hands. “ _Fai-tor nash-veh. Ni’droi’ik nar-tor_.”

“Spuh-haaawck!” Kirk whined good-naturedly. His body reverberated with the spark of lust he had long since come to expect from the sound of his partner’s impassioned native tongue. “I don’t think you’re sorry at all, mister.”

The scientist’s chest rumbled with mischievous laughter. “Actually, I do apologize for teasing you,” he said. He touched his lips to the back of Kirk’s hand before sitting up and pivoting to look at his gasping husband. An affectionate smile broke over his face. “Oh, my love. I _am_ sorry for causing you to become aroused. Although…” he said, giving Kirk the once-over. “You are quite ravishing in such a state.” He leaned forward for a kiss, relaying an image of Kirk’s expression directly into his brain: cloudy, dilated eyes, pouting lips, a few beads of sweat on his forehead, and tousled salt-and-pepper hair all painted a rather debauched picture.

Kirk felt himself blush while Spock’s mouth melted into his own. He wasn’t as limber as he used to be, but he still managed to get both his legs mostly wrapped around the Vulcan’s hips in an attempt to keep him on the couch. When Spock touched his bare chest, Kirk flinched before grabbing his biceps and moaning encouragingly—but those marvelous hands were only there to pull his robe closed and tie the belt in a bow. He whimpered as Spock pulled away and fondly patted his plump stomach.

“If I recall,” Spock said, “you wished to dispose of some of your old clothing today?”

Kirk groaned and sat up, his achy legs falling away from Spock’s waist, and slipped his hands down to his first officer’s wrists. “Well, sure I did,” he said, worrying his fingers into Spock’s skin, “but we can do that any time. Wouldn’t you rather, um…” He took Spock’s earlobe into his mouth and lightly sucked on it.

Spock chuckled and freed his arms, encircling the Human with them and briskly running his hands up and down his back. “Consider that your reward if you successfully organize your side of the closet… and your drawers,” Spock said. “Like an incentive program.” He laughed openly when Kirk moved to kiss and nibble on his neck with a jesting growl and vigorous shakes of his head, comically imitating a predator lethally biting its prey.

“Fine, fine,” Kirk said around his own giggles, “have it your way.” He left a very wet kiss on Spock’s shoulder before they sealed their hug with one last contented squeeze and Spock rose effortlessly to his feet.

“My captain,” Spock said, extending his hand to help Kirk off the sofa.

“My _ha’su_ ,” Kirk answered, taking the proffered hand and stretching once he was standing. “My love…” he added, dragging his fingers down Spock’s chiseled cheekbone and drawing close for another kiss.

His lips met nothing but thin air.

“Hey! I was going to get those,” Kirk complained when Spock swept in and gathered up their empty cups from the side table before he could reach for them. Hot on his lover’s heels, he scrambled to get hold of the shirt plastered to Spock’s lean back and pointed shoulder blades as they moseyed toward the kitchen, but his quarry was too agile. “Get back here, you little snipe!” he laughed even as the exertion of skipping around on his tiptoes pulled a few muscles he otherwise never noticed.

Looking every bit the coquettish ingénue with one foot effeminately popped up behind him, Spock batted his eyelashes and flashed him a shy grin over his shoulder when he reached the sink. Their mugs clattered against the dishes they’d already left there earlier, and Spock blindly fumbled for the spray nozzle attached to the faucet.

“Oh no you don’t!” Kirk said, pressing his body flush against Spock’s back and trapping his arms in a forceful embrace. “Got you cornered now, twinkle toes.” He sucked a quick bruise into the supple neck just in front of his face, catching the chuckling Spock’s wayward hand before it could pull any pranks with the bowls full of tepid water in the sink. “Nuh-uh. No splashing. You—hey! You just… give me that paw, kitten!”

Spock—his sophisticated bondmate, the _Enterprise_ ’s stoic science officer, the half-Vulcan who had valiantly tried to convince a crew of over four hundred Humans that he had no emotions—mewled and meowed in a pathetic attempt at falsetto, further goading Kirk on. The latter made a few dog-like snarls and yips as he proceeded in devouring Spock’s cervical vertebrae.

“James Tiberius,” Spock said a few moments later, his voice and bearing abruptly forbidding, body going stiff in Kirk’s arms.

Taken aback by the stern professorial tone, Kirk loosened his hold and met his gaze with a look that was adamantly more concerned than spurned, although he felt both in equal measure. “Honey?” he said quietly. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

Well, at least that was a relief.

“What’s wrong?” Kirk said, softly rubbing Spock’s fingers between his own.

“The fireplace,” Spock said, turning in Kirk’s arms and staring phaser beams into his eyes.

The old red-alert chill ran up Kirk’s spine; his entire body spun in panic to assess what he half expected to be an inferno in their living room.

Everything was fine. Through the open doorway, he could see the fireplace still crackling away as peacefully as ever. The cat was awake, having turned around at the commotion and settled back down on her haunches to keep her sharp topaz eyes on them from her warm spot by the hearth.

Kirk was baffled. “Trenny?” he said to the cat, tilting his head curiously—a gesture which she mirrored.

 _Mmmmmmade you look_ , Spock’s deep voice said inside Kirk’s mind just as his sultry purr met his ear. The Human jumped instinctively, but then immediately settled backward into Spock’s strong frame. Pale, shapely hands kneaded into his lower back and made their way around his waist to his front, all while a long nose exhaled such beautifully vibrating breaths onto his shoulder as it nuzzled the collar of his multicolored bathrobe aside.

It was Kirk’s turn to hum in delight at the familiar yet no less titillating sensation of Spock’s wet but mildly coarse tongue lapping a wide stripe up his jaw.

“My reference to the fireplace was not a complete non sequitur,” Spock said between licks all over the cords of Kirk’s neck. “We should turn it off.” Lick. “So as not to burn the entire building down.” Lick (and a snicker from Kirk). “It is also due for a thorough cleaning.” Lick. “As we tend to extinguish it before bed.” Lick. “And are thus too tired to clean it properly as often as we should.” Finally, he licked behind Kirk’s ear and punctuated his remarks with a nibble on his upper helix.

“Speaking of thorough cleanings,” Kirk said, “are you, what, like… bathing me or something?” He was doing his level best not to laugh at the tickling movements of that magnificent tongue or the adorable kneading motions of those hands on his chest and belly.

“Mmhm,” Spock replied, now just outright sucking on the shell of his ear and moving from the curve of it down toward the lobe.

Kirk let him continue his feline ministrations while he considered their growing list of household chores. The dishes all needed washing, but those could wait since dinner would only create more. The bed was still unmade, but if Kirk got his way anywhere from the next ten minutes to four or five hours from now, it would just get mussed up all over again in their lovemaking, so it was sensible to leave it be. Going through their closet would likely result in another mess, piles of clothes scattered all over the furniture and carpet in the master bedroom, as he anticipated finally being able to sort out all those old things he never wore anymore (an abundant category in his current wardrobe). None of those tasks were too bad, all things considered.

But _ugh_ , cleaning the fireplace. There was a reason he liked to keep the flames going well into the night and then make excuses about the lateness of the hour to avoid maintaining it. Sure, it only involved sweeping the ashes and soot into the receptacle at the back of the firebox, pressing a few buttons, and refilling the reservoir of cleaning solution once the inner mechanisms were done polishing the walls. Yet it was still one of those chores toward which Kirk perpetually felt an almost inexplicable aversion. Something about it was just…

“Gross?” Spock suggested.

“Yes,” Kirk said, amused that Spock had bothered to follow his train of thought while treating his opposite ear to the same rinsing he’d given the first.

“I find it somewhat gratifying,” Spock said, “to watch the smoke stains and tarnish disappear as the brushes pull the solvent along each surface.” Of _course_ Kirk’s fastidious husband would find that pleasing. His own hands had been systematically kneading Kirk’s whole torso in horizontal stripes, from his sternum to the outsides of his ribcage and back, not missing a centimeter of muscle along the way.

“Well, that can be _your_ chore after dinner then,” Kirk said, “while I do the dishes.”

“You realize that we have the technology to do that without manual labor, do you not?” Spock always enjoyed teasing him about the admittedly eccentric delight he took from dishwashing the old fashioned way.

“Yes, dear,” Kirk said. “But if I do them by hand, you’ll finish with the fireplace long before I’m done, which means you’ll come up behind me and wrap your arms around me, and then eventually you’ll get impatient because I take too darn long, so you’ll get your hands all wet and soapy like mine and I’ll get to rub your slippery fingers between my own and—”

“It is nearly midday,” Spock interrupted, giving Kirk a gentle push toward the living room. His cheeks were very faintly dusted with that handsome blush his Human loved so much. “If you wish to sort through your entire wardrobe before our evening meal, I suggest we… _get cracking_ , I believe is the expression?”

Kirk’s hearty bellowing was accompanied by bashful Vulcan giggles as the tall logician lured the stocky flirt back to their bedroom, dodging those big pink hands that were trying to land frolicsome spanks on his backside.

* * * * *

Some three and a half hours after the cat wandered in to inspect the first slowly-growing pile of Kirk’s clothes (reminding the couple to turn off the unattended fireplace), the finicky former admiral had tried on, shown off, and been persuaded to weed out enough of his old things to fill a large laundry bag, which they would drop off at the nearest donation and repurposing site in the next few days. Kirk, who had been in nothing but his briefs most of the time so as to make his ersatz fashion show a little bit easier, tossed yet another still-fitting work-appropriate lightweight suit jacket onto the others stacked on the bed, then reached up into the air in a long stretch. His spine and shoulders cracked and his hands flew down to massage the irritatingly achy muscles in his lower back.

Spock had plopped himself in the middle of their California king for the duration as he provided leisurely commentary and slurped on the gigantic smoothie Kirk had whipped up for him around fourteen hundred hours. He’d gone from sitting cross-legged to lying propped on his side to sprawling on his stomach diagonally across the rumpled duvet while the numerous “keep for wearing” and “keep for sentimental reasons” piles accumulated around him. At Kirk’s painful stretch, Spock crawled on his elbows to the edge of the bed, gained his feet, and batted his spouse’s hands away to begin massaging his quad muscles for him.

“Perhaps we should take another break,” he suggested, nimbly setting his almost-empty “smoothie barrel” (as Kirk liked to call it) on their dresser and putting that hand to work at Kirk’s lumbar region as well.

Kirk groaned under Spock’s care, reaching back to caress his wrists in encouragement. “Actually, I only have three or four more things left, so I just want to power through at this point. Then maybe we should get take-out from somewhere, maybe have an early dinner and a couple movies we can snuggle through, how’s that sound?”

“You should have told me earlier that your quadratus lumborum muscles were so stiff,” Spock said, digging into a couple of knots with his thumbs. “I approve of your plan, though. It sounds as if we have a lovely evening ahead of us.”

With a happy whimper, Kirk twirled around and rose up to peck Spock’s lips. “I’m going to go pee again real quick, but then we can knock out these last few things and be done with this stupid project.” His smile and another quick kiss earned him a loving stroke of Spock’s hand over his cheek, then he bounced into their bathroom to relieve himself for what seemed like the trillionth time that afternoon. He’d been a good boy and downed about twelve glasses of water, though, so surely his fussbudget of a husband would be satisfied with his efforts to keep his kidneys functioning to Spock’s standards.

“What time is it, honey?” he called to Spock through the open door.

“Quarter of sixteen,” Spock responded.

Kirk evaluated their timeline and allowed himself to smile at the fact that his precision-minded science officer was finally— _finally_ —okay with rounding to the nearest five minutes or quarter hour and using Standard vernacular to indulge his considerably more loosey-goosey partner. At least on occasion, anyway.

A curious _fwomp_ sound came from the bedroom.

“You okay?” he shouted. He wondered what kind of trouble his funny Vulcan was getting himself into.

“Fine,” Spock said, sounding distracted.

Flushing and washing his hands quickly, Kirk skipped back into the bedroom and found Spock bent at the waist, attempting to stabilize a mound of “keep for wearing” garments which had apparently tumbled to the floor. Kirk was momentarily struck speechless by those gorgeous mile-long legs, then the fleeting glimpse he got of the fold under Spock’s hindquarters and the fair, silky-smooth crescent moon of gluteal skin peeking out from beneath his fluffy shorts and underwear.

“Hey, cutie,” Kirk said, coming up behind his lover and fondling his hips, only half-jokingly rutting his own pelvis against his posterior. “You can just leave all that on the floor, it’s not a big deal.”

Ignoring Kirk’s easygoing advance, Spock righted himself, his arms laden with business-casual shirts in a whole rainbow of colors. “It was likely my moving off the bed that upset the equilibrium of this pile,” he said, “and I don’t wish to be responsible for getting your clothes wrinkled and soiled.”

“I don’t know if I believe you,” Kirk said, sneaking his fingertips under those super-short pajama shorts. Once Spock unloaded the shirts onto the mattress and straightened again, Kirk cuddled up against his back and husked into his ear, “Seems like you’re actively _trying_ to get my clothes soiled, putting this irresistible tushie on display for me, just _inviting_ me to make a mess of myself.” He lightly squeezed the deliciously soft flesh of Spock’s cheeks in his hands, planting a few brief kisses on the fabric over his thoracic vertebrae.

Over their marital bond, Kirk felt a zephyr of affectionate sexual excitement flow from Spock’s consciousness into his own. The refreshing gust turned choppy when the first officer remembered the task at hand and his body and mind fought with each other over carnal temptation and restraint. As always, Kirk stayed on the sidelines of Spock’s inner war and nonchalantly rooted for temptation to win.

“I thought you said we only had three or four more outfits to sort through,” Spock eventually managed to say, although his voice alone would have betrayed nothing of his private struggle. “And you do _so_ love to finish projects once you start them.”

Knowing the Vulcan was right, Kirk yawned and turned his head, squashing his cheek into Spock’s scapula and letting his hands stray from his voluptuous glutes to his impossibly thin waist. His fingers gently skated up and down Spock’s torso while he leaned his head against his bondmate, sighing in bliss, simply taking a moment to savor the feelings of joy and security and wholeness freely breezing back and forth between them.

 _We did have an agreement_ , Spock’s sexy voice said in his mind, _that if you cleaned out your entire wardrobe today, we would make love._

“Where were we, then?” Kirk said abruptly, ungluing himself from where he’d curled around Spock’s body and clapping his hands. He spun on his heel and strode to the closet, which was nearly empty— _stars be praised!_ —enthusiastically yanking the next thing off its hanger.

Spock chuckled fondly behind him at his capricious behavior.

Kirk was rather surprised to discover that the old blue and white high-necked track jacket he’d flung around his shoulders still fit. He used to wear it every summer when they’d spend a month or two at their mountain cabin, hiking, climbing, horseback-riding, and doing all manner of other outdoor activities that Spock pretended to disdain but secretly enjoyed because they brought such delight to his mate. A few years back, Spock had given him a new jacket for… something—his birthday? Perhaps their anniversary… Anyway, it had been a long time since he’d seen the trusty windbreaker he’d replaced, and it summoned a great many pleasant memories.

Yet a vague little surge of what felt like dread or perhaps nausea coursed through him. It came and went in a fraction of a second, no longer than a shadow at high noon, no wider than a single hair. Kirk wasn’t even certain it was real, so he shrugged it off. He’d have to ask Bones if instantaneous disorientation was a symptom of aging.

“A little beat up,” Kirk said, pulling the front closed and spinning to show his husband, “but still fits. Unbelievable.”

A peculiar nostalgic look came over Spock’s face— _probably the same one that’s on my face_ , Kirk thought—and he stepped backward until his knees met the bed and he sat down without moving his gaze or even blinking. He was quiet as he looked his spouse over, evidently appreciating the way the jacket looked on him.

“What do you think?” Kirk prompted. He posed for dramatic effect, holding his right arm out like the statue of Zefram Cochrane in Bozeman.

“It is charming,” Spock said, “especially paired only with your boxer briefs.”

Kirk laughed and stripped the coat off, tossing it to Spock with a nod to indicate he put it in the “keep for sentimental reasons” pile.

His favorite old biker jacket was next in line. Kirk giggled and shook his head, getting a kick out of what a studly tough guy he used to think he was, running all over the galaxy in this deep maroon vegan-leather number. He knew this one was a little tight anymore, but he could never part with it—McCoy had had too much fun poking fun at him over it back in the day for him to get rid of it. Folding it lengthwise and then doubling it over again on his arm, a longer flash of something more like heartbroken resignation than nausea came over him and he must have made a weird face.

“Are you alright?” Spock said, himself looking a bit dazed where he sat staring pointedly at the leather bundle.

“Yeah,” Kirk said, feeling almost dizzy, the way he did if he’d been sitting in front of a campfire too long and was just starting to get loopy from smoke inhalation. Maybe the fabric had absorbed some kind of funky chemical somewhere that had affected both of them? He lifted the material to his nose but didn’t smell anything suspicious. Somewhat cautiously, he held it out to Spock and furrowed his brow as his partner took it from his hands.

He waited and watched while Spock examined it, turning it over and back, skimming his fingertips along the seams. Perhaps his more acute Vulcan nerve endings could detect something on the microscopic level that might explain the odd feeling that had descended on the room.

But a few seconds later, his slanted eyebrows all but disappearing behind his bangs, Spock fluttered his eyelashes and gingerly laid the wadded-up coat next to the pile he’d draped the windbreaker on. He turned his face up to Kirk’s, smiled pleasantly, and folded his hands in his lap.

The inexplicable spell Kirk had been under fizzled out and he returned to the closet. If Spock had no input, no misgivings or observations to put forward about it, well… _kaiidth_ , he supposed. No use getting his panties in an uproar over nothing.

“We’re down to two!” Kirk exclaimed, his voice sounding too loud after the eerie stillness of the last minute. Power through! That’s what they’d set out to do, and Jim Kirk wasn’t the sort of man who just gave up organizing his closet when there were only two blasted hangers left to clear!

The penultimate piece lurking in the furthest recess of his half (or three-fourths) of their closet was a burgundy-colored blazer he seemed to remember wearing to work all the time when it was new, probably close to ten years ago. His fingers relished the texture of the aged but still soft fabric as he withdrew it and held it in front of his chest, losing himself in another inkling of some impression or distant emotion that hovered like a glowing ember on the edge of his mind.

Supposing this time that if he helped his head along with a little muscle memory he might actually figure out what it was spontaneously trying to recall, he slipped his arms into the luxurious sleeves—ah, there was nothing like the smooth glide of high-end regulation xenylon—and fastened the wide black belt’s goofy buckle around his middle. It really fit more like a tunic, now that he thought about it, so he did a comically exaggerated catwalk turn to present his nicely-complemented (and, he was proud to say, still plush and perky) rump to Spock.

For all that he tried to ignore it, though, Kirk’s skin tingled… _sizzled_ beneath the suit coat. He had a nagging inkling that memories had been branded into the fibers of it, seared into the threads. Or if not memories, then some kind of significant… _some_ thing. His brain felt itchy, it felt stinging and raw like an exposed abrasion over the whole thing—not just this jacket but the last two as well.

Stumped, Kirk flailed his arms in futility, letting them fall to his sides even as that déjà vu swept over him again. His eyes met Spock’s and he felt even more unsettled: his bondmate was perching on the very edge of the mattress with his elbows on his knees, fingers steepled before his face. His most somber analytical expression pulled his features taut while he did a double-, triple-, and quadruple-take of the blazer and the Human it was wrapped around.

“ _Adun_ …” Kirk said.

Spock met his gaze, the rest of his body remaining perfectly frozen.

All of a sudden, it seemed to Kirk that his husband hadn’t looked so _young_ in twenty years or more. Those deep-set mahogany eyes and sharp cheekbones looked exactly the way they had the very first day they’d met. Kirk’s heart skipped a beat at the vivid hallucination, and he wondered if Spock was holding his breath, too.

 _What’s happening?_ he thought over their link. He felt the nervous desperation in his own eyes bursting out toward Spock like a solar flare.

“I am unsure, sweetheart,” Spock said, sweeping a hand through his mop of hair and taking in their surroundings the way he sometimes did when they woke up in the morning.

“But you… felt it, too?” Kirk said, flattening the front flaps of the jacket against his hips to keep from wringing his hands together. “Felt… weird?”

“Yes,” Spock murmured. His eyelids narrowed as he regarded the other coats he’d set beside him on the bed. A tense beat passed and he looked back to Kirk, seeming about to speak. The familiar blush Kirk found so attractive had bloomed across Spock’s skin.

“What is it?” Kirk said, even more concerned now at the bashful air around his mate.

Spock moistened his lips and swallowed. “I believe I just had a… a vision.”

_What the hell?_

“I saw you,” Kirk said, connecting a few of the dots. “When you looked up at me a moment ago, I thought I hallucinated or something. I saw… well, I saw _you_ , but you were, like… thirty-five again.”

Spock’s blush vanished and his jaw visibly clenched. “I likewise seemed to be looking at your younger self,” he said slowly.

Another long silence fell. Gradually, Kirk felt Spock’s side of their bond start pumping through their joint metaphysical bloodstream the sense of adoration and protectiveness that was normally in constant circulation into and out of both of them. Kirk hadn’t even realized until then that they had each been so stunned by the bizarre circumstances that their pulse had stopped. He willed his mind to open itself back up and resume the usual flow of thoughts and emotions between them, relaxing into the comforting feeling as soon as it was restored.

“Alright,” he said, summoning his tried-and-true gumption. “Let’s just…” The wide belt at his waist had become too tight, so he began fumbling around with the buckle. “I’m going to take this off. Then let’s finish this mission and we can talk through everything afterward.” It wasn’t until after he’d said it that he felt silly for calling such a mundane household task a _mission_. Well, old habits died hard.

He saw Spock nod in his peripherals while he clumsily worked his way out of the jacket. Once he was free of it, he chucked it onto the pile next to the first officer and determinedly put it out of his mind in the interest of focusing on that last scrap hanging in the closet.

Unimpressed, he pulled the thin garment off its hanger and held it up to get a good look. It was a suit shirt made from a washed-out pinkish-lavender fabric, or else it had been white once upon a time and he’d accidentally laundered it with a purple sock or something. And the long sleeves were ridiculous, ballooning out and gathered at the wrists, giving them a ludicrous parachute-like feel. There was some interesting detailing along the neck and lapel, an array of diagonal seams ornamenting an offset button flap closure that ran down the torso—but the raggedy old thing was covered in stains and filled with holes.

Why would he have bothered keeping this? Why would he ever have _worn_ it in the first place?

On closer inspection, the stains seemed more like phaser burns, which would explain the holes as well. All around, it just looked sad. Kirk haphazardly bunched it up and pivoted to toss it in the “discard” pile on the floor.

“What do you know?” he said, his mood already more buoyant for having finished this production. “That’s the whole kit and caboodle, Sp—”

Before he could finish his triumphant declaration, his husband’s fingers had forcefully grabbed onto his outstretched wrist, staying his hand and rescuing the threadbare shirt from its textile-recycling-plant fate. Spock had come out of nowhere, somehow appearing directly behind Kirk without his even having noticed.

“Honey,” Spock purred in his ear, “you cannot dispose of this.”

“Wha—” Kirk stuttered, turning to face him. “Are you kidding? It’s in tatters, Spock, there’s no way I’m wearing that.” He noticed that his spouse was standing awfully close, his nose almost brushing against Spock’s chin.

“Please,” Spock said, smoothing out the fabric, handling it as if it were a priceless artifact, “put it on one more time before you decide.” His breaths were hot on Kirk’s cheeks and neck. “For me,” he added, ghosting one hand along Kirk’s arm and making the tiny hairs there stand up.

Kirk was helpless to deny his cherished Vulcan anything, so thoroughly under his spell that there was no use even putting on airs about it. Besides, Spock’s was such a lovely spell—quite the opposite of the almost paranormal discombobulation they’d both just experienced. He let the outer ends of his eyebrows melt downward and his lips ooze up into the wholly enchanted smile he gave only to Spock, the one he saved for special, intimate moments like this where he could lay all his vulnerabilities bare and simply be the romantic goober he truly was at his core.

Without moving from the spot, Kirk reached for the shirt and ended up getting his hands tangled in a knot with Spock’s, which had begun to unfasten the chest closure to help him along in the process. Unexpectedly, he felt like he had a bunch of Rigellian butterflies in his stomach at the inadvertent contact. It was Kirk’s turn to blush as his lover held the ratty old shirt open for him, nonverbally beckoning him closer with the chivalrous gesture. Kirk obliged, aligning his arms with the sleeve holes and leaning backward into the inviting semi-embrace of that flawless creature he’d fallen so madly in love with.

Although the shirt itself was, eh… _crispier_ than a garment had any business being, the worshipful touch it brought with it was electrifying. Spock’s large, powerful, eminently caring hands moved in broad, tantalizing sweeps over his shoulders, down his back, all along his arms, and up to his collarbone when Kirk rotated to give them access to the front flap. He had no idea what had come over his husband, but something about this poor little battered shirt had captured his fascination (and Spock was certainly not easy prey). Whatever it was, Kirk was quietly grateful to it for bringing those thrilling fingertips onto his body, where they really belonged all the time but, regrettably, could not always remain.

“I’m not even going to bother looking in the mirror,” he murmured when Spock had finished dressing him. “And even though I know this thing is unwearable, I’ll keep it because you seem so badly to want me to, for some reason.”

Indeed, Spock was evidently having a hard time letting go of him long enough to take in the full picture. His eyes and fingers languidly traced every seam of the thin shirt and every line of muscle beneath it for several delicious, peacefully erotic minutes. He genuinely couldn’t seem to keep his hands off his Human (not that the Human was complaining).

Kirk stood patiently, allowing Spock to explore his body to his heart’s content. He brought his forearms up to cradle Spock’s bare elbows in his hands, and he loosely clung to them for balance as his eyes drifted closed in pleasure.

When it occurred to Kirk that, given how content his spouse appeared, Spock might just keep running his touch over his chest indefinitely, he cleared his throat and said, “ _T’hy’la?_ ”

“Your luscious figure,” Spock said, “is so irresistibly accentuated by this fabric.” His voice sounded faraway, like he was sinking into a dream but refusing to surrender to it without bringing Kirk with him. “The contours of your musculature…” He trailed his hands down Kirk’s arms, drawing his long fingers over his wrists. “The warmth of your body radiating from this thin fabric…” Curling his fingers along the outsides of Kirk’s hands, he slid them over his palms. “Jim,” he said, lingering on his name as he seemed to be mustering the courage to vocalize his thoughts, “there will always be a… a special place in my heart… for the way you look in this garment.”

Kirk’s breath hitched at the sentiment. Praying that his chest wouldn’t explode with all the love he had inside him, he shivered as his soulmate’s exhilarating hands moved spectacularly, agonizingly slowly from the base of his fingers to the tips, then finally brought their palms flush together in a passionate _el’ru’esta_. He took a few moments himself to concentrate and summon the nerve to speak.

“I will never know,” he said shakily, “what I ever did to earn your love, Spock. And I might never know what it is about this shirt that’s gotten you so hot to trot.” Moon-faced, he stared into the most dazzling eyes ever to exist and gave Spock what felt (and probably looked) like a drunken smile. “But I wish that every creature in the universe was fortunate enough to have someone who truly is half of their heart and soul… who could see their aging, deforming body in some silly outfit with stains and holes and… _sleeves_ as preposterous as these—but still love them and honor them and find them desirable anyway.” He burrowed into Spock’s body and neck then, happily nudging his nose against the Vulcan’s handsome jawline.

“As soon as I saw this extraordinary shirt in your hands,” Spock said, wrapping his arms around Kirk, “I understood the strange feelings we have been experiencing over the past several minutes.”

Kirk drew his head back to search his husband’s face. “What?”

“I know why we have both been having, for lack of a better term, déjà vu,” Spock said. His hands were so strong where they rested on Kirk’s shoulder blades and the small of his back.

“Tell me?” Kirk whispered.

Spock smiled down at him. “I first noticed it when you tried on the navy blue windbreaker you always wore on our vacations to the cabin.”

“Yes,” Kirk chimed in, “me too! It wasn’t very strong, but I felt a quick flash of… well, I’m not sure what. Nausea, maybe. And then when I looked at you, it faded into… hopefulness. Or relief. Something I’m not sure I have a word for.”

“I believe I know what you mean,” Spock said. “I had a nearly identical experience.”

“So what do you think it means?” Kirk asked, distractedly rubbing aimless shapes on Spock’s chest.

“My only knowledge of the situation is from glimpses of memories which you shared with me in one of our melds, many years ago. When you put that jacket on, I hypothesize that we… re-experienced, if you will, a certain event which I was not actually present for. Or rather, we telepathically recalled the most poignant _emotions_ which were associated with that event for you.”

“Sure,” Kirk said, “you’re talking about sensory memory, like the, um… Proust effect, right? Vivid recollections being triggered by smells?”

“Correct,” Spock said. “Your feelings—in this case, dread, fear, anguish, even illness—were so acute when this event occurred that your mind formed a subconscious psychological link between those feelings and the very clothes you were wearing. You were desensitized to the effects for quite a long time because you had frequent, sometimes daily, exposure to them, but when we replaced that jacket with a new one, your immunity to it faded. Thus when you found it today after several years of it having been buried in the back of our closet…”

“Those memories came back all the more intensely,” Kirk finished. That didn’t answer the foremost question in his mind, though. “But Spock,” he said, “ _what memory_ were those feelings connected to? How am I ever supposed to figure out what event downloaded all those emotions into that stupid track jacket? I mean, like you said, I used to wear that thing all the time!” He almost felt panicked about it, his fingers digging into Spock’s shirt.

“Darling,” Spock cooed, “be still.”

Kirk sensed his husband’s mysterious healing abilities float into his mind and body, calming his nerves from the inside out.

“Do you happen to remember,” Spock said, his voice low, intimate, soothing, “whether that was what you were wearing when my father came to you? Came _here_ after my death and searched your mind for my _katra_?”

_Dear merciful Heavens._

Just like that, Kirk had his answer. Spock’s words brought a squall of memory upon him far more powerful and certain than anything he’d felt all day long.

“Oh, Spock!” he whispered, letting his forehead collapse onto his spouse’s chest. “Yes. Yes, it was that jacket.” Tears began to form behind his eyelids but he fought to keep them at bay. “When he came here, when he told me that there was a way you could have survived and that I had blown it…” He hiccupped rather pitifully but couldn’t bring himself to care, though he hid his face a little more in the black pajama top. “God, Spock, I was so devastated I just… I wanted to die right then and there.”

Spock massaged his back in wide circular motions. “But then you deduced only a few minutes later that I had transferred my _katra_ into Leonard, and—”

“And my heart almost burst with the hopefulness and relief I felt.” Kirk resurfaced from his cover and stared unseeing at the cute tufts of chest hair peeking out from Spock’s neckline. “So then, does that mean the leather jacket…?”

“When you arrived at the Genesis planet and found us,” Spock said, “I believe you removed it and covered your son’s body with it.”

Yes… David. Hence the heartbroken resignation. It all checked out so far.

“And then I rejoined the group and put my suit coat under your head,” Kirk said. “I couldn’t even bear yet at that point to let myself believe it was really you, that you were…” Despite his best efforts, the tears spilled out and ran down his cheeks.

“I know, Jim.” Spock drew him close and protectively covered his head with an arm, his lips working into Kirk’s hair to leave a sweet kiss on the top of his scalp. “It is alright, my precious husband,” he muttered, “I am here. I have you.”

For several minutes, Kirk quaked and sniffled, Spock gripping him tight as if he intended never to let go again. When his crying spell faded out and he felt capable of speech, Kirk pulled his head up and wiped his eyes and cheeks with the back of his hand. Once his vision was mostly cleared, he was reminded of the last bit of clothing they hadn’t yet discussed—the puffy sleeves were difficult to ignore, after all.

“This purple shirt,” he said, “was what I had on the entire time. The hijacking, Genesis, our trip back home after our exile.”

“Perhaps more significantly,” Spock said, tilting his chin up with two fingers to look into his bondmate’s eyes, “this is what you were wearing when I regained consciousness in my own body, when my _katra_ was restored and we first stood in one another’s presence again after my _fal-tor-pan_.”

“When you first looked upon me again,” Kirk added, nearly breathless. “Spoke to me.”

“Yours was the first and only face I recognized, the only name I knew.” Spock kissed his temple, gently steadying the back of his head as his other hand remained on the small of his back. The marital bond between them fluttered with overwhelming yet relaxing winds. “I want you to keep this shirt because it has such profound sentimental value… for me.”

“For _us_ ,” Kirk corrected, gliding his fingers over his partner’s distinctive clavicle and up his corded neck. “Oh, _k’diwa_ , I’m so grateful we can touch each other again, that we can kiss again, that we can...”

“Make love again?” Spock guessed.

Kirk giggled. “Well,” he said in a tiny little singsong, “we _did_ have an agreement.”

“We did,” Spock acknowledged, moving his fingers to Kirk’s front and beginning to unfasten the wonderful, beloved old shirt. “You did an excellent job completing this project, my love.”

“We made quite a mess in here, didn’t we?” Kirk said, amusedly evaluating the chaotic blobs of clothes all over their bedroom while Spock picked up the pace in undressing him.

“And we left quite a mess in the living room and kitchen as well,” Spock said, delicately slipping the fragile shirt from Kirk’s shoulders and kissing, licking, sucking a euphoric line of love marks into the skin of his lover’s neck as he did so.

Remembering the uncleaned fireplace and the sink full of dirty dishes, Kirk laughed.

“However,” Spock said, draping the lavender shirt over the back of the desk chair behind him, “I find our messes rather pleasing at the moment.” With that, he hoisted Kirk into his arms in a bridal carry, both of them chuckling in self-satisfaction.

The Human snaked his arms around his gorgeous husband’s shoulders. “Spock,” he said, adopting his most seductive tone, “would you make a mess of _me_ now?” He teased the short hairs at the back of Spock’s neck with his tickling fingers, adoring the carnal look of possessiveness and lust in the Vulcan’s eyes. “Please…”

“James,” Spock said as he laid him on his back on their bed and carelessly shoved several piles of clothes onto the floor. “ _My_ James…” he mumbled, crawling like a stalking panther on his hands and knees to hover over him. “It would be my pleasure.” He swept Kirk’s hair back from his forehead and began moaning so beautifully in anticipation.

“Hmmm, and mine,” Kirk said, working his own hands under Spock’s pajama shirt and already maneuvering those soft shorts down his narrow hips with his feet.

Their passionate sounds woke the cat for a brief moment where she was napping by the vista windows in the adjacent room. Unperturbed once she identified the familiar noises, she fell back to sleep, amazed but thankful yet again that her fathers’ frequent playtimes still hadn’t resulted in millions of new kittens toddling around her home.

**Author's Note:**

> Vulcan translations:
> 
>  _ashal-veh_ = darling, beloved  
>  _fal-tor-pan_ = refusion of body and _katra_ (i.e. the Vulcan ritual whereby Spock’s soul is transferred out of McCoy and into Spock’s new body at the end of _Star Trek III_ )  
>  _katra_ = spirit/soul; the living essence of a Vulcan; a combination of soul and memory  
>  _ozh’esta_ = finger embrace, a touching of the index and middle fingers between bondmates  
>  _el’ru’esta_ = hand embrace; a crossing of the wrists and touching of palms by _t’hy’la_ or family  
>  _-lar_ = suffix used to indicate plural  
> ** _ozh’estalar_ = Vulcan kisses  
> ** _el’ru’estalar_ = Vulcan, uh… French kisses? (I guess I think of the _ozh’esta_ and _el’ru’esta_ as analogous to a closed- and open-mouthed kiss, respectively)  
>  _Dzheims_ = James, i.e. Kirk’s given name pronounced with a Vulcan accent (transliterating the Vulcan _dzh_ sound for the “J” phonetic of English/Standard, e.g. _Dzhefris_ = Jefferies, _Raidzhelsu_ = Rigellian, etc.) (I head canon that Spock saying Kirk’s name with his native accent _really_ turns Jim on :))  
>  _ri_ = not; used to express negation, denial, refusal, or prohibition (as in the construction of Surak’s saying, _Ri klau au ik klau tu_ , “Do no harm to those that harm you”)  
>  _pehkau_ = stop; to cease moving; to put an end to what one is doing  
> ** _ri pehkau_ = don’t stop  
>  _kahs’khior’i_ = shooting star (in my head canon, one of Spock’s favored pet names for Kirk)  
>  _t’nash-veh_ = my; mine  
>  _ah_ = yes  
>  _tal-kam_ = dear; a beloved person; used as a term of endearment  
>  _fai-tor_ = know; to grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty; to regard as true beyond doubt  
>  _nash-veh_ = I; “this one”  
> ** _fai-tor nash-veh_ = I know  
>  _Ni’droi’ik nar-tor_ = I’m sorry; literally translates as asking forgiveness  
>  _ha’su_ = angel (in my head canon, one of Kirk’s favored pet names for Spock)  
>  _kaiidth_ = Vulcan philosophical equivalent to “what is, is” (from _kya_ , “to exist”)  
>  _adun_ = husband  
>  _t’hy’la_ = friend/brother/lover  
>  _k'diwa_ = beloved; shortened form of _k’hat’n’dlawa_ , “one who is half of my heart and soul”
> 
> *Translations taken from the Vulcan Language Dictionary at https://www.starbase-10.de/vld/ and korsaya.org
> 
> **These are words/phrases I attempted to construct on my own, based on the VLD and korsaya.org resources, so take them with several grains of salt as I am not fluent in Vulcan. If I’ve completely butchered the grammar and/or vocabulary, please let me know!
> 
> According to TrekMovie.com’s 2011 article “80 Reasons Why William Shatner Is Awesome,” the great Mr. Shatner’s favorite color is “leaves changing.” I hadn’t read that before a few months ago, and I loved it so darn much that I wanted to use it somewhere in a story; hence, Kirk’s robe being a red-orange-gold ombré number. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this one! I’ve always been one of those saps who keeps certain old outfits even though they don’t fit anymore or are, like, totally nasty but that had some sentimental value, and I’ve also had varying Thoughts and Feelings about some of the costuming choices that were made (particularly for Kirk) in the TOS films (particularly _Search for Spock_ and _Voyage Home_ ). Bottom line, though—whether you like his futuristic civilian costumes or not, we all have to agree that at least the maroon polyester pants made his Still-Perfect Booty look just as amazing as ever. LOL! ♥ ♥ ♥
> 
> ((Psst! Hey! Come space out with me on Tumblr! I’m [jimkirkachu](https://jimkirkachu.tumblr.com/) over there and I always love to make more Trek and K/S friends!))


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